Prior to taking my aged old ma for her trip up to the Lakes, I discovered that the passenger seat wouldn't lift electrically. Ordinarily, this wouldn't bother me too much but as she is a wizened diminutive 5' tall now and much of our time is spent driving around I thought it might be handy if she could actually see over the dashboard.

So, out came the seat. Childishly simple to remove and gave me the opportunity to admire the sheer quality of the thing. Typical BMW / sausage muncher engineering. I ruled out blown fuse as forward / backwards motor worked fine. I suspected the motor more than the switch so I disconnected the supply and attached directly to a battery. Nada, zilch, hapana kabisa....

I resigned myself to attempting to raise it manually and set about removing the motor - which was easier said than done as it also meant removing the back-and-forth motor too. Faced with this daunting task it suddenly struck me: the oldest trick in the book: hit it with a hammer. With nothing to lose except time I simply did not have, I judiciously tapped away in a few strategic places. You could have knocked me down with a rusty feather when I reconnected the battery and it worked!

Reassembling the seat was predictably very simple but I will admit, I haven't tried to lower it again using the switch, thereby proving the old adage: if it ain't broke, don't fix it!